The Oscars: When Ebert Sabotages Himself, We All Win

Over at his blog, Roger Ebert has made his annual Oscar predictions for you to parse, debate, and even defeat. His Outguess Ebert contest offers a grand prize including a trip to Pixar's Wall-E premiere this summer, but if I were a betting man, I'd almost prefer the parting gift: a pack of DVDs including There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and, of course, Juno.

And to hear Ebert tell it, my odds are better than I might think:

In theory, if I correctly predicted every single Oscar race, nobody could outguess me, and by default, I would win the prize. Alas, that has never, ever happened, and it's unlikely again this year, because as usual I will allow my heart to outsmart my brain in one or two races, which is my annual downfall.

When he's right, of course, he's really right, such as his prediction that Crash would upset Brokeback Mountain in 2005. But Gold Derby know-it-all Tom O'Neil reminds us that Ebert blew it in '06 with choices like Babel for Best Picture and Eddie Murphy for Best Supporting Actor, and this year Ebert is rolling the dice on Juno's emotionally insurmountable Ellen Page:

My brain says Julie Christie will win, both for her career achievement and for the quality of her work. But my heart says Ellen Page made me want to hug Juno in a performance that was much more difficult than it might have appeared. To deliver Diablo Cody's high-voltage dialogue with such breezy authority and to make the character loveable and three-dimensional was a genuine achievement.

I can see it Ebert's way, though I still prefer his dark horse, Marion Cotillard, who had it even rougher in La Vie en Rose with a genuinely bad script, listless direction, and the most suffocating biopic conventions working against her, yet made channeling Edith Piaf look about as effortless as Juno's pregnancy test. Then there's the witchcraft behind the scenes, the (uglified) sex-symbol factor … OK, I'm in—pass me a ballot, Rog.

S.T. VanAirsdale is the founder and editor of the New York film culture site The Reeler.